Happily Ever After
by gleeme33
Summary: Five-year-old Melchior and Wendla share a moment under the tree. Fluffy Melchior/Wendla.


**Just a cute one-shot because I love this couple! :) Thanks and enjoy.**

"Melchi?"

Melchior Gabor looked up from his picture book. First grade had started today for young Melchi, and it was everything he had imagined it would be. Knowledge excited him like candy or toys excited other boys and girls his age. His five-year-old mind could neither describe it nor find the words to say it out loud, but he just had a…_thirst_ for knowledge. Any knowledge. Anything he could get his hands on and…learn.

"Wendla? Wendla Bergmann?"

There next him, appearing like a little tree nymph from the forest, was Wendla Bergmann, that girl from the neighborhood. They used to play pirates with Ilse and Moritz day in and day out, but now that the boys were in school, they could only see the girls on weekends…and that just wasn't as fun.

"Yes, Melchi…wait, what are you doing here?"

"What are _you _doing here?"

"Oh, nothing really…" she said, trailing off almost sheepishly. "If you sit by the stream, you start to dream, Melchi. You start to drift off into such a mystic land…"

"Quite," Melchior smiled. "Yes, yes, Wendla…isn't it great? I mean, when you sit here, by this oak tree…you start to dream such…such hypnotic things!"

"So wonderful, Melchi!"

"Truly…" There was a pause that neither of them seemed to like, until Melchior spoke again. "Won't you sit for a while?" he asked.

"Oh, but…what time is it?"

"Must be about four by now."

"Oh…I thought it was later. I have to be home by five. I…I thought it was…later…"

"So?" He waited for her answer, but she still seemed…hesitant. Or, rather…shy.

"Well…" she bit her lip, but answered: "I guess I could sit for a few minutes, then." Melchior stood up and waited for his friend to sit, then sat back down himself.

"Lovely," Wendla breathed.

"What's lovely?" he asked.

"The horizon, Melchi! Look at the skyline! You can see Berlin!"

"Wow…it is quite lovely, Wendla. You're quite lovely."

Silence.

"Is that a…a book?" Wendla asked.

"What? Oh, this?" Melchior stopped and looked down at the reading book that he had now since tossed aside. "Yes," he answered. "I have to read it."

"You can…_read_?"

"Yes…well, um, kind of…" He tried to answer, and her brown eyes grew wider.

"But…but where did you learn to _read_?"

"At school."

"Oh."

More silence.

"The other day, I asked my mama why I could go to school now and you couldn't," Melchior said. "But she didn't really tell me why."

"What did she say?" Wendla asked.

"Well," he paused a bit, thinking it over, and said: "She said that even though we're the same age and the same height and all, we're different. She said boys and girls are _different_."

"Really?" Wendla sat up a bit. "My mama said the same thing!" Her big brown eyes trailed over to the cover of Melchior's book. It read…well, she couldn't tell what it read. "What does that say?"

"Hmm?"

"The cover of your book Melchi! What does that say?"

"_Fairytale Stories_," he answered, reading the title off to her. "It's a bunch of different fairytales."

"Oh." She paused, then asked: "What's it about?"

"Well, they're all pretty much the same…I guess." He said. "There're all about a prince who rescues a princess and they kiss and live happily ever after."

"'S that how it goes, Melchi?"

"How what goes?"

"Happily ever after. Is that what happens when you've grown up and gotten married?"

"I s'ppose so, Wendla. That's how it is in the stories. They kiss and ride off into the sunset. If I had a horse, we could ride off into the sunset. But we'd have to kiss and get married first."

"That wouldn't be so bad," Wendla said. "We could ride away to a magical land where everything would be what it wouldn't be, and nothing would be as it is, and – "

"And we'd never have to leave each other when we get older.

We could stay together and play pirates with Moritz and Ilse. Everything would be fun and perfect and…and – "

"And…" Wendla tried to finish his sentence. "And happy forever. Happily ever after."

And he leaned over and pecked her on the lips.

And it was perfect.


End file.
